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Quote of the Day
“Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.”
-Steve Jobs, who on this day in 1976 formed Apple Computers.
April 1st – This Day in Stock Market History
April 1st, 1976 – Apple Computers is formed. Apple’s first location was Steve Job’s garage:
Apple’ founding document, dated April 1, 1976, was signed by Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs, and Ronald Wayne. It divided ownership of the new company among the three, giving Jobs and Wozniak each 45 percent and Wayne 10 percent.
Ronald Wayne would sell back his 10% stake 11 days later for $800, putting a $8,000 valuation of the company. Why did he leave? Wayne has said on Facebook:
“I didn’t separate myself from Apple because of any lack of enthusiasm for the concept of computer products. Aside from any immediate apprehension in regard to financial risks, I left because I didn’t feel that this new enterprise would be the working environment that I saw for myself, essentially for the rest of my days. I had every belief would be successful but I didn’t know when, what I’d have to give up or sacrifice to get there, or how long it would take to achieve that success…
If I had known it would make 300 people millionaires in only four years, I would have stayed those four years. And then I still would have walked away. Steve and Steve had their project. They wanted to change the world in their way. I wanted to change the world in my own.”
Of course with hindsight, it is easy to question his judgement. That 10% stake in Apple would be worth $100 billion 40 years later. But many people forget Apple’s long road to get to where it is today that led to the firing of Steve Jobs in 1985 and Wozniak’s exit.
Here are a few other notable ‘This Day in Stock Market History’ archives that deal with Apple and Steve Jobs:
- December 12th, 1980 – Apple IPOs at a $1.7 billion valuation
- September 16th, 1985 – Steve Jobs resigns as Apple’s CEO
- September 16th, 1997 – (Yes, exactly 12 years later) Steve Jobs rejoins Apple as interim CEO.
Today Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world, and Apple would become the first trillion dollar company on August 2nd, 2018.
April 1st, 1999 – Yahoo buys broadcast-com from Mark Cuban for $5.7 billion, or $130 per share.
Broadcast dot com would IPO on July 17th, 1998 with a value of just over $1 billion. Yahoo would purchase the company just 9 months later at $5.7 billion, amounting to $10,000 per user. It was Yahoo’s largest acquisition in its history.
Here is what the homepage of broadcast-com looked like in early 1999:
The company would mostly be shut down by 2002, and does not exist today.
Best April 1st in Dow Jones Industrial Average History
1938 – Up 4.11%, 4.07 points.
Worst April 1st in Dow Jones Industrial Average History
1898 – Down 2.82%, 0.97 points.
Read of the Day
Walter Isaacson published a biography on Steve Jobs in 2011 shortly after Jobs’ death. Jobs had an amazing history, and the book is full of inspirational quotes, stories, and examples.
Steve Jobs
<– Go To Previous Day: March 31st: 1917 – The U.S. purchases the Virgin Islands for $25 million
Go To Next Day: April 2nd: 2007 – The first signs of trouble as the nation’s largest subprime lender declares bankruptcy–>
